Easy Slow Cooker Chicken Drumsticks (5 Ingredients!)
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Savory, juicy slow cooker drumsticks only have five ingredients. It’s a delicious tender chicken dinner that is so kid-friendly and is super easy to make.
This is the best way (and my favorite way!) to cook chicken drumsticks, and the entire family will love this recipe.
Table of Contents
Why We Love Slow Cooker Chicken Drumsticks
- Quick And Easy Dinner– Low prep, and dinner is ready for you when you want it. This is one of my favorite slow cooker recipes for its quick prep time.
- Juicy Chicken– Cooking dark meat like these chicken drumsticks in the crockpot always makes a super juicy chicken dinner!
- Five Ingredients– Only a few simple ingredients in this recipe, that you likely already have! This recipe has a sauce similar to a savory bbq sauce and is an easy chicken dinner recipe for all home chefs or (kid chefs!)
Ingredients For Chicken Drumsticks
Find the full printable recipe with specific measurements and directions below in the recipe card.
- chicken drumsticks
- honey – you can use a little less or a little more to your own taste
- ½ cup soy sauce – I always prefer low sodium but you can use what you have
- ketchup – you can also swap in your favorite bbq sauce
- garlic – you can use fresh garlic, minced garlic or garlic powder
How To Make Slow Cooker Chicken Drumsticks
- In a small bowl, whisk together honey, soy sauce, ketchup and garlic.
- Spray the slow cooker with a spray cooking oil I like to use spray olive oil or avacado oil) . Place the chicken drumsticks inside the bottom of the slow cooker, stacking the chicken if necessary.
- Pour the sauce over the chicken drumsticks.
- Cook the chicken drumsticks slow cooking on high heat for 4 hours (or low for 6 hours). Serve and enjoy!
What To Serve With Slow Cooker Chicken Drumsticks
Try some of these delicious side dishes with your slow cooker drumsticks!
Loaded Mashed Potato Casserole
Pull Apart Garlic Cheesy Bread With Storebought Biscuit Dough
Can You Make This Chicken A Freezer Meal?
You can prepare these chicken drumsticks and freeze them into sauce to prepare your dinner ahead of time. To use this recipe as meal prep, you must defrost the chicken and sauce before adding it to the slow cooker.
Can I Make This Drumstick Recipe Spicy?
I like to add just a few red pepper flakes at the table, but you could also add them to the sauce if the whole family likes it spicy. I’d start with 1/4-1/2 teaspoon if adding to the sauce unless you like a lot of spice.
A few dashes of hot sauce can also be added to the whole slow cooker.
What’s The Difference Between Chicken Drumsticks and Chicken Legs?
Chicken legs include the chicken thigh attached to the chicken drumstick. Chicken drumsticks are just the bottom calf part of the chicken leg. Sometimes people mistakenly call chicken drumsticks “chicken legs.”
How Can I Thicken The Sauce?
Here’s how to thicken the sauce over the chicken drumsticks. I don’t always thicken the sauce though because sometimes I want it to be a super simple recipe and it’s delicious as written in the recipe card at the bottom of the page.
- Remove the chicken from the slow cooker.
- Add two teaspoons of cornstarch to four teaspoons of water and mix well with a fork or a whisk to make a cornstarch slurry.
- Place the sauce in a small saucepan on the stove on medium-high heat.
- Add the cornstarch and stir the sauce, cooking for 2-3 minutes or just begins to simmer. Then toss the juicy chicken drumsticks again in the sauce. Serve and enjoy!
How Long Do These Chicken Drumsticks Last?
These slow cooker chicken drumsticks will last for about three days in the refrigerator if stored in an airtight container.
Leftover chicken from this recipe doesn’t freeze well unfortunately, but you could cook a few less drumsticks and the recipe will still work.
Other Easy Chicken Dinner Recipes You’ll Love
Slow Cooker BBQ Hawaiian Roll Chicken Sliders
Baked Bruschetta Chicken
Easy Baked Salsa Chicken Breast
Slow Cooker Chicken Drumsticks
Ingredients
- 3 pounds chicken drumsticks about 12 drumsticks
- ½ cup honey
- ½ cup soy sauce
- ½ cup ketchup
- 1 clove garlic minced finely or 1 teaspoon minced garlic
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together honey, soy sauce, ketchup and garlic.
- Spray the slow cooker with a spray cooking oil. Place the chicken drumsticks inside the bottom of the slow cooker, stacking the chicken if necessary.
- Pour the sauce over the chicken drumsticks.
- Cook the chicken drumsticks on high for 4 hours (or low for 6 hours). Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Make This?
I would love to see it! Share your thoughts with me in the comments below!
Hi Kristy
Try putting all the ingredents into an oven bag seal it up & then pop it into the slow cooker no messy clean up just thorw the oven bag away
Hi Vicky, Yes you could do that if you prefer, or I believe they sell liners that are made for the slow cooker. I usually prefer to just clean my slow cooker, but the liners work too.
can we put the chicken in the broiler before serving to get the skin crispy?
You can, but I would watch it closely as it only takes a minute or two under the broiler before the chicken burns. This chicken is already pretty crispy but you can crisp it up a little more under the broiler.
I hv tried this recipe and was pleased! I also recommend trading catsup wth Heinz 57 sauce and drumsticks wth wings. Lots of them! Add to crockpot and cook accordingly (low for 4hrs) Then I pour the wings out on a cookie sheet (wth parchment paper) and put under broiler for bout 5min. to give them some color.
Can I use tomato sauce instead of ketchup?
Your sauce will be more watery if you use tomato sauce instead of ketchup, and more sweet. You may need to thicken it with cornstarch and water, and sweeten it a little bit.
All of the meals 😋 look so
Delicious 😋 it makes me hungry ,just reading and looking at them.
The Chicken 🐔 is beautiful.
I’m currently using this recipe right now. I have it in the crockpot. I appreciate the simple 1/2cup for the ingredients. Makes it less overwhelming. I’ll give an update of the end results soon. 🩷
It’s amazing!
Delicious…will definitely make this recipe again. I used chicken thighs as that is what my husband and I prefer. Halved the sauce recipe. When the chicken was done cooking, I poured the sauce in a pan. When it began to boil added a slurry of cornstarch and water to thicken. Poured the sauce over the chicken and served with green beans and mashed potatoes.
Very easy and very tasty
Delicious
I want to make this recipe, but my son can’t have tomatoes. (or anything acidity) Can I used peach or orange preserves instead of the ketchup?
I have never tried this recipe with preserves Barbara so I can’t really say if it would work without testing it. I am sure you could make a great sweet chicken with preserves, but the concern would be because they are sweeter and thicker how much could you add while still balancing everything (as it already has sweet honey) plus making sure the recipe overall has enough liquid that it wouldn’t burn.
I would probably default to more of a teriyaki sauce first if that works, as that could likely be swapped cup for cup a little closer without being too sweet.
This was quite good. We cooked it until it was juicy and tender and falling off the bone. The only reason for the 4 star review was that I thought the flavor of the sauce would be more noticeable, more intense. Still, it probably would be agreeable to younger eaters.
Perfect for Sunday dinner. This is an excellent budget friendly recipe that can feed a lot at once. I cooked ramen and the meat just fell off the bone, sautee’d some frozen green vegetables, used the leftover sauce to cover. Delicious!
The chicken look very yummy l give it 10/10
No rating. I just wish these recipes were adjustable as to serving sizes. When there is only 1 or 2 people living in the household, 12 drumsticks are far too many.
Hi Eileen, Unfortunately I can’t set my recipes per serving. When you are baking, or even for many dinner recipes when you start cuttings recipes down by the piece it just doesn’t work out in even measurements without reworking the recipe a little bit.
Slow Cookers in particular work best when they are at least half, if not 2/3 full. Only putting 2-4 drumsticks in the slowcooker just won’t cooked the same as cooking with it half or 2/3 full.
I recommend for two either freezing half of the recipe for another dinner or meal prepping for the week. For example, maybe you serve the chicken as is the first night, then the second night you remove it from the bone and serve it in a wrap. Re-inventing your leftovers can make them stretch further, and can save you time in the kitchen. Also check out http://www.dessertfortwo.com, she focuses on sweets but does have dinner recipes as well, and her recipes are all designed for two people. Hope that helps, Kristy
Made these last week and they were delicious, my husband and daughter said, you can make these anytime 😋 I made 5 drumsticks and instead of 1/2 …I used 1/4 of the ingredients and it was very good and cooked 4hours on low…3 hours would have worked, but meat very tender and fell off the bone😋
All you have to do is cut the recipe in half:
6 legs
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup soy
1/4 cup ketchup
1/2 tsp minced garlic.
This recipe I honey for monk fruit sweetener and used no sugar ketchup and low sodium soy sauce. Seasoned drumsticks with paprika salt pepper turmeric. They tasted amazing
Glad it was delicious for you with the swaps!
How long to cook if using wings?
I have not made this recipe before using wings. I would start with on low 3 hours with wings if fresh, or on high 2 1/2 hours if the wings are frozen, but that is my best estimate since I haven’t tested it myself. Let me know how it goes!
I thought i would give this a try ,so easy to make and to my total surprise my other half who is so fussy with food ate the lot on his plate. Def making this again
So glad you both enjoyed it Gill!
In the pictures, some of the legs look like they’ve been “charred” in places which is what I like. Does this occur while they’re cooking in the crockpot or can they be placed on the grill for a few minutes after they’re done cooking in the sauce?
That totally depends on your slow cooker, they can develop those bits in places where it touches the bottom of the slow cooker. Some machines run a little warmer then others. Yes you could try to throw the chicken on the grill for that effect, though the chicken is really tender and almost falls off the bone. I might suggest putting it on a thick pan and broiling it for just a minute or two. Keep your eye on the broiler though, it can quickly go from nicely brown to burned as we are working with really high heat when we broil. Hope that helps!